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'HE public ufe of marriage inftitutions confifts in their promoting the following beneficial effects:

1. The private comfort of individuals, especially of the female fex. It may be true, that all are not interested in this reason: nevertheless, it is a reason to all for abstaining from any conduct which tends in its general confequence to obftruct marriage; for whatever promotes the happiness of the majority is binding upon the whole.

2. The production of the greatest number of healthy children, their better education, and the making of due provifion for their fettlement in life.

3. The peace of human fociety, in cutting off a principal fource of contention, by affigning one or more women to one man, and protecting his exclufive right by fanctions of morality and law.

4. The better government of fociety, by diftributing the community into feparate families, and appointing over each the authority of a master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil authority put together.

5. The fame end, in the additional fecurity which the state receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the folicitude they feel for the welfare of

their

their children, and from their being confined to permanent habitations.

6. The encouragement of industry.

Some ancient nations appear to have been more fenfible of the importance of marriage inftitutions than we are. The Spartans obliged their citizens to marry by penalties, and the Romans encouraged theirs by the jus trium liberorum. A man who had no child was entitled by the Roman law only to one half of any legacy that should be left him, that is, at the most, could only receive one half of the teftator's fortune.

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

ORNICATION.

Tthe guilt, of promifcuous concubinage, conHE firft great mifchief, and by confequence fifts in its tendency to diminish marriages, and thereby to defeat the feveral beneficial purposes enumerated in the preceding chapter.

Promifcuous concubinage difcourages marriage by abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of the fpecies will not undertake the incumbrance, expence, and restraint of married life, if they can gratify their paffions at a cheaper price; and they will undertake any thing, rather than not gratify them.

The reader will learn to comprehend the magnitude of this mifchief, by attending to the importance and variety of the uses to which marriage is fubfervient; and by recollecting with all, that the malignity and moral quality of each crime is not to be estimated by the particular effect of one offence, or of one perfon's offending, but by the general tendency and confequence of crimes of the fame nature. The libertine may not be confcious that thefe irregularities hinder his own marriage, from which he is deterred, he may allege, by different confiderations; much lefs does he perceive how his indulgences can hinder other men from marrying but what, will he fay, would be the confequence, if the fame licentioufnefs were univerfal? or what should hinder its becoming univerfal, if it be innocent or allowable in him.

2. Fornication fuppofes proftitution; and prostitution brings and leaves the victims of it to almoft certain

certain mifery. It is no fmall quantity of mifery in the aggregate, which, between want, difeafe, and infult, is fuffered by thofe outcafts of human fociety, who infeft populous cities; the whole of which is a general confequence of fornication, and to the increafe and continuance of which, every act and inftance of fornication contributes.

3. Fornication produces habits of ungovernable lewdnefs which introduce the more aggravated crimes of feduction, adultery, violation, &c.* Likewife, however it be accounted for, the criminal commerce of the fexes corrupts and depraves the mind and moral character more than any fingle fpecies of vice whatfoever. That ready perception of guilt, that prompt and decifive refolution againft it, which conftitutes a virtuous character, is feldom found in perfons addicted to thefe indulgences. They prepare an eafy admiffion for every fin that feeks it; are, in low life, ufually the firit ftage in men's progrefs to the most desperate villainies; and, in high life, to that lamented diffolutenefs of principle, which manifefts itself in a profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of religion and moral probity. Add to this, that habitsof libertinifm incapacitate and indifpofe the mind for all intelle&ual, moral, and religious pleasures; which is a great lofs to any man's happiness.

4. Fornication perpetuates a difeafe, which may be accounted one of the foreft maladies of hunian nature; and the effects of which are faid to visit the conftitution of even diftant generations.

The paffion being natural proves that it was intended to be gratified; but under what reftrictions, or whether without any, muft be collected from different confiderations.

*Of this paffion it has been truly faid, "that irregularity has no limits; that one excefs draws on another, that the molt eafy, therefore, as well as the most excellent way of being “virtuous, is to be fo entirely." Ogden. Ser. xvi.

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The chriftian fcriptures condemn fornication ab "Out of the heart,' folutely and peremptorily. fays our Saviour, "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blafphemies; these are the things which defile a man.' These are Chrift's own words; and one word from him upon the subject is final. It may be obferved with what fociety fornication is claffed; with murders, thefts, false witness, blafphemies. I do not mean that these crimes are all equal, because they are mentioned together; but it proves that they are all crimes. The apoftles are more full upon this topic. One well known paffage in the Epiftle to the Hebrews may ftand in the place of all others; because, admitting the authority by which the Apoftles of Chrift fpake and wrote, it is decifive: Marriage and the bed undefiled is honourable amongst all men, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge;" which was a great deal to fay, at a time when it was not agreed even amongst philofophers that fornication was a crime.

The fcriptures give no fanction to thofe aufterities, which have been fince impofed upon the world under the name of Chrift's religion, as the celibacy of the clergy, the praife of perpetual virginity, the prohibitio concubitus cum gravida uxore; but with a juft knowledge of, and regard to the condition and intereft of the human fpecies, have provided in thẹ marriage of one man with one woman an adequate gratification for the propenfities of their nature, and have reftrained them to that gratification.

The avowed toleration, and in fome countries the licenfing, taxing, and regulating of public brothels, has appeared to the people an authorizing of fornication, and has contributed with other caufes, fo far to vitiate the public opinion, that there is no practice of which the immorality is fo little thought of or acknowledged, although there are few, in which it can more plainly be made out. The legiflators